Humans don’t know how to function without rules. The Law was given to provide structure around the core concepts of “love God, love others”. It functioned as a starting point, but was ultimately ineffective because it could not cause people to love. Christ came to take the Law into Himself as its fulfillment, model and author. He himself is the new Law, the incarnation of loving God and living others. Through his power we are freed to do that loving. Freedom in Christ is the freedom to live out the spirit of the law.
The expectations were not lowered, but raised – beyond our capabilities, requiring us to depend on the power and forgiveness of Christ. Freedom in Christ is the freedom from guilt and the dominion of sin. The slavery to sin is replaced by slavery to Christ – slavery that is in fact sonship and servitude that is in fact freedom.
But Paul here discusses other forms of slavery even beyond that of sin but that will also separate us from the freedom found in Christ. Paul attacks those here: Legalism, Spiritualism and Asceticism.
First, Legalism. In this case, the legalism of keeping Jewish religious festivals. Christians were being judged for not participating in religious holidays. This can happen in many ways, though. Legalists take biblical principles and turn them into extra-biblical regulations. Applications of principle become new rules by which we judge ourselves and others – and punish and reward themselves and others.
It’s not that morality is relative or that we can’t confront or be confronted regarding sin. Instead, it is that we must not enslave others to the systems, even the good systems, that we develop for ourselves.
Spiritualism is the way of living the Christian life that seeks super-spiritual experiences that then they use as their yardstick for others. Everything from the complex angelic systems of the first century to the elaborate eschatology of the 20th to even otherwise positive theological or apologetic systemics and arguments.
Experience can be a powerful force to trump truth. Be careful of any experience focus that is not focused on loving God and loving others. Do not be bound by the spiritual experiences of others. Seeking experience is simply feeding our flesh desires with a spiritual veneer.
We are also free from Asceticism. We are free from other people’s systems of holiness and standards of purity. Avoidance of pleasure and harsh treatment of the body does not actually kill temptation or prevent sin. It is an attempt to replace Christ with rules in order to solve our sin problem. We now have freedom in Christ to create our own boundaries and standards, but as soon as we start taking pride in these boundaries or judging others by these, we are outside God’s will. (If we pride ourselves on not having these boundaries, it works the same way.)
If we live by these isms, we lose connection with the Head, replacing Christ with rules, experience or some other system built by man. We live as if the rules can do something that only Christ can do. Christ gives us freedom to live in the gray, not just in the black and white.
These rules, Paul writes, have no value when it comes to actually changing hearts. Instead of freeing us to love God and others, they enslave us to rules and self, and then ultimately the system breaks down anyway. Our foundation is not in Christ, and so when that system or leader or whatever fails, we go into a tailspin and are unable to extract the reality of Christ from the falsehoods and human systems.
Per John Piper:
Legalism is a more dangerous disease than alcoholism because it doesn’t look like one. Alcoholism makes men fail; legalism helps them succeed in the world. Alcoholism makes men depend on the bottle; legalism makes them self-sufficient, depending on no one. Alcoholism destroys moral resolve; legalism gives it strength. Alcoholics don’t feel welcome in church; legalists love to hear their morality extolled in church.
In all things, we are to seek to love God and love others, depending on the power of Christ, not the systems of men.
— Sermon Notes, Brent Rood, Seed Church, Lynnwood WA
Colossians 2:6-23
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